Wednesday, March 1, 2017

Well, this is a novelty for me - I've had to pre-schedule this post to appear at one minute past midnight, because I received an email containing information that was embargoed until exactly that time. You may remember that way back in January, there was a highly misleading article in the Sunday Herald about a report penned by John Curtice that was supposedly going to appear within the week. It had been commissioned by the Scottish branch of the Electoral Reform Society (ERS), so I kept checking their website, but nothing ever appeared. It's finally been published after a mysteriously long delay, and I'm absolutely astonished to say that the accompanying ERS Scotland press release contains a direct fib about its contents. The organisation's summary of Curtice's findings baldly states that "it was not votes on the regional list for other pro-independence parties which cost the SNP a majority". Hilariously, that is directly contradicted only a few paragraphs later in Curtice's own summary, which states that "this [SNP/Green vote-splitting] may have cost the SNP one or two list seats". You probably won't need a calculator to work out that two extra list seats for the SNP would have taken them to a total of 65 - exactly the number required to secure a majority. As Curtice was the guy who actually wrote the report, I think we can safely regard his own summary as being the more authoritative of the two.

ERS Scotland's excuse for this brazen misrepresentation appears to be Curtice's verdict that "the main reason the SNP lost out" was constituency losses - but all he means is that there were fewer SNP list seats squandered as a result of vote-splitting than there were unexpected constituency defeats. That's not the same thing as denying that there might well have been an SNP majority if "tactical voting on the list" had not occurred, and he doesn't deny that - indeed he concedes the point openly on page 44.

"In Table 4.8 we report on how the distribution of list seats would have been different in each region if the SNP had won 2.2% more of the list vote and the Greens 2.2% less. As anticipated the Greens would have won four fewer seats, leaving them on the two seats that they won in 2011. Two of those lost seats would have been claimed by the SNP, but the other two would have been allocated instead to Labour or the Conservatives. Two extra seats would have been just enough to deliver the SNP a majority with 65 seats." Good luck to anyone who attempts to reconcile that passage with ERS Scotland's characterisation of the report (I'm sure someone, somewhere will valiantly give it a go).

As you know, I'm sick to the back teeth of having to rebut propaganda about "tactical voting on the list" - it really should be the last thing on our minds with an independence referendum potentially coming up long before the next Holyrood election. However, for anyone who wants to read in more detail about the yawning chasm between ERS Scotland's claims and the truth, I would invite you to have another look at the blogpost I wrote at the time of the Sunday Herald article - depressingly, the distortions haven't changed at all since then.

So what are ERS Scotland playing at? In many ways, they're actually pretty open about their agenda - they disapprove of majority government, regardless of the party in power. That's absolutely fine, but it doesn't justify them pulling the wool over the public's eyes about how the electoral system works in an attempt to artificially engineer their own desired outcome. Their actions have been nothing short of cynical.

My own support for proportional representation pre-dates my support for independence by several years, so I'm instinctively very sympathetic towards the Electoral Reform Society, but it's impossible to deny that my respect for them has now been severely undermined. Self-evidently, their reputation as a non-partisan organisation has also been somewhat tarnished. OK, they've only taken an interest in reducing the number of SNP seats because the SNP happen to be the dominant party at a particular moment in time - but it's hard not to take this sort of stunt personally when you're the ones on the receiving end.

* * *

I mulled over the possibility of writing a full response to the Claire Heuchan "racism" article, but on reflection I decided life is too short. As you can imagine, though, I have a lot of fellow feeling towards those who are bewildered to learn that the simple fact of being "white Scots" apparently disqualifies them from expressing any view at all on Sadiq Khan's outrageous assertion that support for Scottish independence is no different from racism. Much the same thing happened to me and a number of others a couple of months ago when we were literally told to "shut up" after daring - as men - to express our own views about the John Mason controversy. It's intriguing how quite a few people found/find themselves on different sides of the two disputes, in spite of the fact that the principle at stake is identical. The following two tweets pretty much sum up everything I want to say.

* * *

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85 comments:

Having met a couple of the people in the ERS Scotland, I wouldn't be too quick to conclude that they're only spinning against the SNP because the SNP is the party with nigh-on 50% of the popular vote. Srsly.

James, you seem to be telling old stories but not promoting Scottish Independence. Are you admitting defeat? I can appreciate you are a sensble chap and a Uionist at heart. Why are you not demanding an immediate referendum?

The simple fact that plenty of Independence supporting people of colour and women (including prominent MSPs and MPs) totally destroyed Khan and the subsequent Grauniad clickbait article tells you all you need to know about just how staggeringly out of touch the westminster chattering classes and Dugdale's SLAB suicide squad are.

Not to mention the fact that everyone in scotland knows an SNP voter (hence the somewhat massive lead in all polling) so laughably inept bullshit like this was always going to fail and backfire on the yoon imbeciles who somehow thought it was a good idea.

End result - Grauniad loses even more of it's already plummeting readership - another 'Better Together' BritNat has outed herself as a vacuous smearing hypocrite - Labour and SLAB continue their headlong plunge off the cliff towards complete and utter irrelevance.

Writing in Holyrood magazine, the Prime Minister said her party would be “looking forward to the local elections in May, when voters across Scotland will have the chance to send a clear message to the SNP that they do not want a second independence referendum, by voting Scottish Conservative and Unionist”.

As they used to say in the good old days of Apartheid RSAthe cream of the volk always vote conservative

I would say yes. That wasn't said to her face but in a tweet which didn't include her handle. Indeed, I believe it was tweeted by an account she actually had blocked at the time.

The article she wrote was grossly insulting and indeed abusive to about 1.6 million people. She's a highly privileged person - a PhD student who has been given a column in the Guardian no less - and she used that privilege to publish vile calumny. If she didn't imagine that some people would utilise some rather earthy language in response she's fairly naive.

That's not the lesson at all. The voting system for the local elections in May is completely different. If there are other pro-independence parties standing in a ward, people would be crazy not to give their lower preferences to them - there are no risks or downsides to doing so.

Also, try to figure out where the available seats are actually likely to go and rank even unionist parties appropriately.

Here we have three seats. Conservative and SNP are nailed-on certainties for two of them. The third is going to be between the LibDem and the second-string Tory. Therefore I'm going to rank the LibDem above the second-string Tory to do my bit to keep the total number of Conservative councillors in our region to a minimum.

If there's a Green standing then I'll put him or her second, but in reality that's just a gesture. I put SNP first, then the only thing that actually matters so far as who is elected is concerned is that I rank the LibDem above the Conservatives.

I've deleted your cowardly anonymous second comment, "Thrawn". How dare you come here, present me with a quote without telling me who said it, without providing any context whatever, without bothering to demonstrate it was even said at all, and then attempt to make me responsible for it just because I correctly pointed out to you that you'd misunderstood the blogpost? IF that comment was actually said, take it up with a person who either a) said it, or b) defended it. I have done neither. And the next time you launch an attack on my integrity, step out of the shadows and do it under your own name.

Firstly I would say the cowardly act here is to delete a non-abusive non-defamatory comment that challenges you to take position on the misogynistic nature or not of a fellow prominent nationalists publically made comment...lets see if you have the courage to post this comment or not

Secondly you can save your synthetic outrage over the anonymity of comments given that you allow comments under the "Anonymous" user name and these make up about half of your commenters. Also forgive me for being a bit wary of posting my name and address on a nationalist website when Ms Heuchen has had to withdraw from social media because she believes people are mining her profiles to get her home address...now they are of course an idiotic tiny minority (and I am sure there are unionists equally guilty of the same thing) but in this day an age discretion is definitely the better part of valour.

Thirdly here is the comment and the context of the quote i supplied...you may prove not to be a follower (and thereby aware of the tweet) of the offending individual but you can perhaps forgive me for assuming so given the interconnected nature of nationalist blogging and bloggers

https://twitter.com/WingsScotland/status/836358234881523712

Fourthly...I did take it up with the individual concerned on his blog and he banned me...it seems an inability to confront misogyny on nationalist websites is catching

Finally my initial question remains...you state in your blogpost that it is possible to criticise a woman without being misogynistic...do you believe the tweet i have included satisfies that...and if not do you condemn it?

Your comment was absolutely outrageous, and I make no apology whatever for deleting it as soon as I saw it. Anonymous comments are permitted here, but all comments are subject to a moderation policy. I have pointed out on a number of occasions that comments that impugn my own integrity without justification are especially likely to be deleted if they are anonymous.

"forgive me for being a bit wary of posting my name and address" : STRAW MAN KLAXON. Nobody has asked for your address. Don't be so bloody silly.

"you may prove not to be a follower (and thereby aware of the tweet)" : You are correct (belatedly) - I am not a follower of Stuart Campbell. He is not a follower of mine. I do not have to forgive you for wrongly assuming there is some connection between us, because you had no logical basis whatever for jumping to that conclusion.

If you've been banned from a website I have no connection with, I'm baffled as to why you're bleating about it here. You'd have as much luck taking it up with the Pope, because it's got absolutely nothing to do with me.

Your final question is not a repeat of your 'initial' question - it's the very first time you've asked it. Having only just seen the tweet for the very first time (you gave me no meaningful opportunity to express my opinion previously), I'm inclined to agree with Mhairi Hunter's assessment - it's phenomenally rude and no more than that. He uses that sort of colourful language about everyone he disagrees with - male or female, black or white. I've been on the receiving end of a few expletives from him.

Straw man klaxon...well you must be deaf from it by now as i have no idea what my anonymity or not has to do with whether "c**twit" is an acceptable way or not to publically describe a woman

I am not bleating about being banned (proud of it if anything)...you asked me why i hadn't taken this up with the originator of the comment and i answered

It is not the first time..i asked it in my initial post...and i asked it again in the post you deleted...and as for "no meaningful opportunity to express opinion"...this beggars belief...IT IS YOUR FRACCING BLOG...what more opportunity do you need?

Finally..."phenomenally rude", "colourful language"...next you will be calling it "locker room talk". We are talking about a man calling a woman a c**t on a public platform because he doesn't like what she says...if this isn't misogyny please tell me what is. Are you and Mhairi Hunter (i guess nationalism trumps {no pun intended} sisterhood) therefore saying that it would be acceptable for me to shout this at her next time she gives a speech in the council chamber? Really?? Defending this is shameful and I think you know it or you wouldn't be reacting with so much anger.

Oooh. Mr/Mrs Non-Angry accuses others of being angry. What a Non-Irony.

"well you must be deaf from it by now as i have no idea what my anonymity or not has to do with whether "c**twit" is an acceptable way or not to publically describe a woman"

Very little, I'd have thought. But it's got everything to do with the reason why your comment was deleted. If you need everything repeated to you seventeen times, here goes : this blog has a moderation policy, and comments that impugn my integrity without justification are highly likely to be deleted if posted anonymously. Clear now?

"you asked me why i hadn't taken this up with the originator of the comment and i answered"

I didn't ask you anything. I told you to take it up with him and not with me. If you've already taken it up with him, here's the latest newsflash : you've reached the end of the road.

"this beggars belief...IT IS YOUR FRACCING BLOG...what more opportunity do you need?"

The opportunity I needed was the opportunity to see the thing I was supposed to be giving a considered response to. For whatever reason, you decided to deny me that opportunity in your first two comments on this thread.

"Are you and Mhairi Hunter (i guess nationalism trumps {no pun intended} sisterhood) therefore saying that it would be acceptable for me to shout this at her next time she gives a speech in the council chamber?"

Good God, are you a Glasgow Labour councillor? Yes, that would explain your anger, right enough. Good luck in May (I suspect you'll need it).

Last but not least, please withdraw your ridiculous claim that I have "defended" the comment you are so obsessed with. An apology would also be highly appropriate.

Maybe if Stu Campbell had actually tweeted that to her there might be a germ of a point in there, but he didn't. He tweeted it to his followers. I believe Miss Heuchan actually had him blocked at the time.

As a woman, can I say how utterly sick and tired I am of people arguing as if women are some sort of precious snowflakes who can't be spoken to or about in the same way as you'd speak to or about a man who had done or said the same thing.

If Claire Heuchan can't take it, she shouldn't dish it out. There is no question that she dished it out, and not in an obscure tweet, but in a CiF article. Now she's squealing "abuse" and frankly I haven't seen any directed at her (as opposed to people talking about her, which is rather different).

It's got to the point that just about every commentator is condemning this alleged "shitstorm of abuse" that has "driven her off Twitter" without there being the slightest bit of evidence that any of it actually exists. It's Susan Calman all over again. Just bleat that you've been abused, mention the words "death threats" and suddenly everyone is supposed to sympathise, and condemn the "abuse" without even seeing it.

She's a nasty, manipulative operator and anyone should be free to call her out on it irrespective of her sex, sexuality or skin tone.

I should mention that I've pursued a couple of people quite hard who were demanding that everyone and anyone condemn this "abuse" and throwing insults at them if they didn't. I asked to be shown even one or two examples which shouldn't be hard to find if it was such a "shitstorm", or so you'd imagine.

That was as clear-eyed and honest a denunciation of the coarsening of our public discourse by the use of misogynistic slurs I have ever seen...bravo! Your courage is an example to us all. The women involved in our political process will sleep soundly tonight knowing that whenever "c**twit" is shouted in their face because they don't hold the same opinion as some mouth breathing neanderthal, James Kelly will be there, ready to heroically step in and condemn its rudeness...

You know..I knew Nationalists were tribal but you always struck me as more reasonable and woke...passionate for your cause but someone capable of admitting honestly the failures of their movement when it was necessary...I never thought for once that out of some sort of blind misplaced loyalty you would stoop so low...a little bit of hope for my country whatever the result of our constitutional wrangles has just died.

As for an apology...all I can say is that i am sincerely sorry if anything said or done in the name of the Unionist movement has pushed you so far from your moral compass that you feel obliged to defend the indefensible

"That dingbat used the same insult on WoS this morning to describe donors to the Rev's annual fundraiser. All he's managed to do is add to the Rev's war chest."

Yup, just had a look and laughed my ass off at the witless Yoon stupidity and hilariously faux outrage.

But why Let Rev Stu have all the fun? :D

Remember, nothing makes 'jocksplaining' BritNat hypocrites angrier than donating to Stu or James

If you've enjoyed my writing in recent months and feel a strange inexplicable urge to 'buy me a hot chocolate', bear in mind that my fundraiser from two years ago is still open for additional donations - it can be found

If you think it's misogyny rather than extreme rudeness, first of all you have to explain why. I'm sorry to put you out, old chap, but after this extended rant of yours, I think it's high time we heard an explanation. The word Stuart Campbell used could have been said by a man about a man, by a woman about a woman, by a woman about a man, or by a man about a woman. Presumably it's only misogyny in one of those four cases? Please elaborate.

If you've been banned from a website I have no connection with, I'm baffled as to why you're bleating about it here. You'd have as much luck taking it up with the Pope, because it's got absolutely nothing to do with me.

Surely not a reference to our resident obsessive below the line commentator and his fascination with Political Betting?

Again, Thrawn, that's just not on. Comment deleted. If you want to claim without a shred of justification that I'm defending misogyny, I'm afraid you'll have to find the guts to do it under your own name.

"Ms Heuchen has had to withdraw from social media because she believes people are mining her profiles to get her home address.."

Laughably untrue bollocks Klaxon.

People found out she was a Better Together Activist and a PROUD British Nationalist through her tweets. (surprising nobody with the hilarious hypocrisy and imbecilic smearing that they prove her to be guilty of) So she then flounced off with the usual BritNat excuse while others showed her twitter timelime was conspicuously absent from the kind of torrents of abuse she claimed.

Again, the precise same actions of every single other trolling BritNat tweeter.

They have pulled this imbecilic stunt way too many times to take seriously now.

Not that mindlessly smearing roughly 50% of scottish voters ever merited anything other amused scorn in the first place.

Seems this black burd has upset the Jock fash. Maybe she has you sussed.In the real world we have Knickerless scraping the barrel by lying about Westminster attempting to dilute Scottish powers.The fash are getting desperate. They better get the finger oot as we will soon be oot of the EU. And why should the Nat sis be involved in Brexit talks or even be kept informed when the halfwits want to remain and crawl tae Herman.

To what extent were people actually 'tactically' voting Green on the list or, like I do as a matter of course, voting Green because that was simply their prefered list vote? And that was after holding my nose and voting SNP for my constituency, this time around.

Scotland has four right wing parties and in order of preference you have the Nat sis, Tories, Labour & Liberals. The Greens are in la la land.Scotland does not have any left party in Holyrood. Scotland is a right wing country both religiously and political.

LABOUR’S standing as the party of the left has been called into question by academics who found that less than half of their voters back left-wing policies.Strathclyde University researchers found the party’s voters are not as left-leaning as they claim to be and are considerably less left-wing than those who back the SNP.The findings were based on the responses of more than 10,000 people who completed an online voter guidance tool, which asks for users’ party preferences and political leanings before quizzing them on policies.

Just 44 per cent of Labour supporters backed policies deemed left-wing while nearly three-quarters (73 per cent) of SNP supporters gave left-wing responses.Users were asked to rate themselves left- or right-wing on a sliding scale.Almost the same proportion of Labour (59 per cent) and SNP voters (62 per cent) described themselves as far- to centre-left, but Labour voters were less likely to give a “left-wing response” to policy choices. Academics described the mismatch as a “paradox”.

Labour has pledged to “keep university tuition fees free” and described paid fees as a dishonest “stealth tax”.But two-fifths (40 per cent) of Labour voters said students should pay tuition fees and less than half (47 per cent) think they should be free.In contrast, 83 per cent of SNP supporters back fee-free education and 12 per cent oppose it.Labour has pledged “radical” land reform to “tackle the concentrated pattern of land ownership” and also to “empower crofting communities”.However, nearly a third (32 per cent) of Labour voters did not think crofters should be able to force the sale of private estates.Slightly more Labour voters (42 per cent) said crofters should be able to force sales, considerably fewer than SNP voters (68 per cent).

The motion called for support to be withdrawn from the Saudi government until a United Nations investigation could determine whether the Saudi bombing campaign had breached international law. The motion did not explicitly include a suspension of UK arms sales.

Over 100 Labour MPs did not vote on the motion. If all of them had voted to support it, the government would have been defeated

International law is negligible as those so called internationalists will kill to defend their interests. The GWC2 impersonator above is a fake nutter and a white Jock supremacist anti English fascist.

I can't make any sense of that. And I'm not aware of any ward with only two seats.

You don't have to rank every candidate, but you should consider whether you're passing up a chance to influence something you might want to influence. If you support SNP then vote SNP 1, and if there's a second SNP candidate vote SNP 2 as well. Listen to your local activists as regards who to put top.

If your second choice is Green and there's a candidate then you can rank them next if you like and I'd do that myself but accept that this is probably only a gesture as the Green is likely to go out early.

Beyond that, you may have a genuine chance of influencing whether the last seat goes Tory or LibDem - or perhaps whether it goes Labour or LibDem. It's daft not at least to look at this and consider which you'd rather have as a councillor, especially when giving the one you'd rather have a ranking isn't going to hurt the chances of any of the candidates you ranked higher.

Absolutely pathetic performance by the Nat si MP'S at Jock question time. The whole lot of them with no policies just sponging whinging pathetic moaners.Give the English the vote if another referendum is held that will rid us off them for good.

The SNP stood for sorry no Papes but then modified although they have the Venerable Pastor Mason preaching from the Glasgow East End. And of course the devout ex Tory bus man who helped bank roll the Nat sis. Still steeped in religion are the Nat sis. So gie up yer orange crap impersonator disnae work.

In 1992 Souter and his wife set up the Souter Charitable Trust, which assists humanitarian projects in the UK and overseas, especially, but not exclusively, those with a Christian emphasis. Projects include the prevention of malaria and supplying daily meals to school children in Africa. According to its website, the trust has awarded over 2,700 grants worth more than £20 million.[39]

Groups funded annually by the trust include Tearfund, The Message Trust, Oasis Trust and Jam International

Forgot tae mention sister Rosanna who came back fae doon under tae restore the Monasteries and the bum bhoy priests..leaving that aside most Scotsmen just go to work then empty their dirty tattie watter intae any growler they can find tae put them up the duff then fuck aff and leave the taxpayer tae foot the bill. In between that they go and watch fitba then go hame and beat themselves up. Just give the English the vote at the next Jock referendum.

Benefit fraud represents 2% of the estimated total annual fraud in the UK. Public sector fraud, which includes benefit fraud, is £20.3 billion a year, so within this category it accounts for just under 8%. The majority of this £20 billion is tax fraud which costs the economy £14 billion annually, or 69%. So we can see that both in absolute and percentage terms tax fraud is a much bigger issue than benefit fraud. In fact, out of all the categories of fraud calculated by the UK Government, benefit fraud is the second lowest. Only identity fraud which costs individuals £1.4billion a year comes below it

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Amy and Rosana are sisters, born exactly 22 months apart in the mid ‘80s. Amy has worked in the sex industry for the past ten years. Rosana is a radical queer performance artist. They are both feminists. Since September 2013 they have been working together on ‘Sister’, a powerful and joyous performance, exploring female sexual identity, feminism and choice.

Excellent news. Scottish trade with Ruk now at 50 billion, four times more than the EU. You Nat si want to throw that away just to hand Scotland over to the EU beaurocrats. Goodness how you must hate the English.

Anarchism opposes the violence which is an integral part of capitalism and the state (this violence comes in many forms: war, patriarchy etc.). We believe that means shape ends – in other words, the way we struggle will shape the outcome of the struggle. This is also why we do not support the seizure of State power by authoritarian political parties. However, anarchists do believe in direct action – action taken by everyday people to address the power imbalance in present day society. This includes strikes, boycott’s, work-to-rule’s and occupations.